Starting Over. Penny Jordan
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rather she could, and it was so untenable that it made her shiver.
Honor was a good listener and she had heard a lot about Olivia from other members of the family, not because they had gossiped about her or criticised her. No, the Crightons if they were nothing else, were fiercely loyal to each other. No. What she had learned was how very concerned in their different ways all her relatives were for her.
‘She was so happy when she and Caspar married,’ Jenny had said. ‘And when the girls arrived …’
And her inference had been that the happiness had gone.
‘She works too hard,’ someone else had said and there had been other comments, all made with loving anxious concern which Honor had correctly interpreted as meaning that Olivia’s life was shadowed and unhappy.
‘Sometimes she seems almost … afraid to let herself relax and have fun….’ had been the most telling statement of all made by Tullah, Saul’s wife, her magnificent eyes darkening as she spoke. There had been, Honor guessed, enough damage done to Olivia as a child for her to feel a need to take refuge in controlling and pushing herself to reach self-imposed targets. And to have a very fragile sense of self worth.
Leaning over to nibble on David’s ear Honor whispered enticingly, ‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘What!’ David pretended to be shocked. ‘It’s still afternoon….’
‘Mmm … siesta time.’ Honor smiled seductively.
Arm in arm they made their way across the gravelled space that separated the house proper from the outbuildings.
Honor was looking forward to the arrival of David’s old friend and mentor and as she walked past the lavender she paused to brush her free hand against its leaves and breathed in the scent she had released.
It was her plan to grow a wide variety of herbs here and to make her own herbals and potions from them.
Olivia reminded her a little of her lavender … outwardly sturdy and tough but inwardly so sensitive that the merest touch could bruise and damage.
BOBBIE, LUKE CRIGHTON’S wife, was the first member of the family to hear Olivia’s news. She had called at the house knowing that Olivia, Caspar and the girls would have arrived home, eager to learn all about their trip and to see if there was any shopping she could get for Olivia whilst she did her own.
‘Mummy’s upstairs,’ Amelia informed Bobbie as she knocked on the open kitchen door and then walked in.
‘Yes, she’s packing Daddy’s things,’ Alex added innocently.
‘Dad’s staying in Philly … in America….’ Amelia supplied and both of them stood and looked at her with such grave-eyed sadness that Bobbie ached to sweep them up into her arms and hold them tight.
‘Olivia,’ she called out from the bottom of the stairs, ‘It’s me—Bobbie. Can I come up?’
When Olivia appeared on the landing Bobbie saw from her expression that she hadn’t been able to conceal the shock the sight of Olivia had caused her. She had lost weight and her skin looked grey, lifeless, like her eyes. She looked … she looked … Bobbie swallowed painfully. Now it was Olivia herself she wanted to hold and comfort.
‘The girls have told you, have they?’ Olivia guessed tiredly.
‘They said something about Caspar staying on in Philadelphia,’ Bobbie agreed awkwardly.
‘You’d better come up,’ Olivia said. ‘Caspar and I are separating,’ she informed her when Bobbie got to the top of the stairs. ‘It’s for the best, for all of us. Things haven’t been good between us for a long time and … he isn’t the man I married, Bobbie … and I …’ Olivia’s voice thickened and Bobbie could see the tears standing out in her eyes as sharp as broken glass.
‘No,’ Olivia denied as Bobbie reached out towards her. ‘No. Don’t sympathise with me … I don’t need it … I’m not sorry. I’m glad. Our marriage just wasn’t working,’ she told the other woman tensely. ‘I think once he got over his initial shock of hearing that I wanted to end it, Caspar was actually relieved.’
As she heard the pain in her own voice Olivia started to frown. Why should she feel pain? She didn’t love Caspar any more. It was a relief not to have him standing at her shoulder complaining that she spent far too much time at work and far too little with him and the girls. It was a relief, too, to only have her relationship with them to worry about. Now that her father had come back people would be watching her even more closely, waiting to see her fail … fall …
‘I know sometimes things happen between a couple that can seem to be very aggravating, small issues really but like a stone in a shoe they can—’ Bobbie was saying quietly.
‘Small issues?’ Olivia interrupted her with a bitter laugh. ‘This isn’t about small issues, Bobbie. The last time Caspar and I had sex was months ago….’
For a moment Bobbie thought that Olivia was complaining that Caspar would not have sex with her but then when Olivia continued angrily, ‘I just didn’t … I just couldn’t …’ Bobbie realised her mistake.
‘Caspar seemed to think I was just being bloody minded … just withholding myself from him to score points. That’s how far apart we’ve grown,’ Olivia burst out. She had started to tremble visibly, her hands moving in quick agitation. ‘We had the most awful rows about it. It was so destructive and damaging for the girls. I tried but Caspar …’
‘Did you think of trying counselling?’ Bobbie asked her softly.
Olivia’s pain and despair were almost a visible physical presence in the room with them. She was normally such a calm, contained sort of person, so controlled that Bobbie was shocked by the change in her.
‘Counselling!’ Olivia gave a mirthless bitter laugh. ‘You mean like my mother ought to have had? I’m sorry,’ she apologised to Bobbie. ‘I know …’ She stopped speaking, pressing her hand against her mouth as though she were trying to silence herself, Bobbie recognised compassionately.
‘It’s too late for that now,’ Olivia told her. ‘Our marriage is over.’
‘What will Caspar do?’ Bobbie asked her.
‘He’s taking a sabbatical. He’s had it approved by the university that he can take time out from lecturing. He says he’s going to ride around America on a bike, a Harley-Davidson,’ Olivia told her derisively. ‘It’s something he’s wanted to do since he was a boy.’
To her own shock she suddenly discovered that she was crying without knowing why.
‘Oh, Livvy, Livvy,’ she heard Bobbie saying emotionally; but as Bobbie stepped towards her holding out her arms, Olivia backed away shaking her head.
There was so much she needed to do, so many arrangements she needed to make. She wanted to be in her office before eight when she started work on Monday. That would give her an extra hour to start going through the post that would be waiting for her and then, if she brought the rest of it home with her on Monday night, she could read it whilst the girls were in bed. At least now that she didn’t have Caspar to consider she would have more time in the evenings to work.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Bobbie told Luke that evening after she had broken the news about Olivia to him.
‘Of course something’s wrong,’ he agreed dryly. ‘She’s left Caspar.’
‘No, I mean apart from that … something’s wrong with Livvy,’ Bobbie persisted. ‘She was … different somehow….’
‘She’s upset. That’s only natural.’
Bobbie sighed